12 Books from Burning Deck Press You Should Have in Your Library

I received some wonderful new books from Rosmarie Waldrop yesterday, new fruits dropped from the Yggdrasil-like branches of Burning Deck Press. (I think of that image of the towering night tree painted by O'Keefe where we are looking up--a worm's-eye perspective--into the starry infinity, before which we see dark earthly branches radiating out as if they were human arms grappling with that void.)

One book is by Craig Watson and the other is translations from German poet Ulf Stolterfoht done by Rosmarie herself. I look forward to reading both these books, and reviewing them.

With it came the latest catalogue, proclaiming "47 years on this Burning Deck?" And what an achievement it is! Two of the planet's finest poets and translators have been at the helm of this stately ship for nearly half a century now. Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop are pretty much the stuff of legends, one of the few places you can look right now and know with absolute certainty that you are looking at people who will be important to literary posterity. That's pretty much guaranteed at this point, unless the little gray or green or graygreen aliens come and zap us all into nonexistence with their Atari 2600 starships and flying saucers. In that case, Keith and Rosmarie are probably toast with the rest of us. But barring that they're pretty much in like Flynn.

I was leafing through this catalogue (and happy to see some of my reviews of books excerpted!) and thought I would make a list of twelve Burning Deck books no library should be without. Of course, there are hundreds of books this press has published worth owning, but I wanted to list some of the ones that have most rewarded reading and rereading for me through the years.

So here tis...all of these may be ordered through S.P.D.(1-510-524-7553 or of course online). Website is www.burningdeck.com

  l  12 Burning Deck Books Every Serious Poetry Library Should Include

(in no particular order)

1. The Peacock Emperor Moth. Marcel Cohen. Translated by Cid Corman, these small prose poems more often than not read like novels in miniature. The negative capability inherent in these stories is beyond belief. I loaned this to a friend and never got it back, and miss it terribly. I will need to replace it soon.

2. Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France. Edited by Norma Cole. This is a wonderful petite anthology of contemporary French poetry and writing on poetry...as the catalogue informs us, these are "letters, poems, interviews, critical pieces and texts that cannot be classified." Some writers included: Anne-Marie Albiach, Danielle Collobert, Dominique Fourcade, Lilian Giraudon, Emmanuel Hocquard and Claude Royet-Journoud.

3. Boudica. Paol Keineg. I remember reviewing this for American Book Review when it came out. Prose poems about history's underlings and their struggles. Compassionate and moving, these poems are like strange tapestries whose mythic images are half eaten away by time, but still hold the power to enchant.

4. One Score More: The Second 20 Years of Burning Deck, 1981-2001. Edited by Alison Bundy, Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop. This is great as a first book to buy if Burning Deck is new to you, or you're just finding your way into the experimental poetry world. Here is a 240 page anthology culled from the various books they've published in the date range of the title. A great bathtub book for winter! You could enjoy a whole Saturday afternoon soaking and reading until you pruned!

5. Not a Balancing Act.. Claire Needell. I think this poet is one of the most underrated poets in America...and one of the most original. She has done some sort of vanishing act after publishing only two books, I believe. Check out the book she did through Talisman's press also. Though that latter one's closer to a chapbook in size, it's very good...very much a phenomenologically-based, rigorous sort of poetry she's crafted...which leads somewhere. I wonder if the poet is still following the trail she laid down into the new sort of poetry which these books gesture towards.

6. The Countess from Minneapolis. Barbara Guest. A classic Guest book. The transfiguration of everything, all earthly objects, is de rigeur in Guest's poetry. Minneapolis may become a Russian city, rabbit holes may become prairie homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright...the poet waves her spoon (er, wand) and the world is transfigured. One of the poets who made Romanticism hip again. A must for every serious poetry library.

7. The House. Jane Unrue. This little book should become a cult classic. A house is experienced in an almost Ponge-like manner. Varied prose poems accrete details and erase details until the house is almost haunted. A very unusual book..it's almost language-sculpture. This one is sui generis.

8. Skyblue's Essays. Dallas Wiebe. Nobody plays the literary crank as masterfully and as memorably as Wiebe. Humor lies right alongside the deathly-serious. You don't have to be into experimental writing to enjoy this...it's great writing by pretty much anyone's standards. How Wiebe has avoided becoming a household name is completely beyond me.

9. Steppe. Ilma Rakusa. The boundary line between short fiction and poetry dissolves in these stories which will please fans of writers like Marguerite Duras and Thomas Bernhard. Defamiliarizing and exhilarating language.

10. Mountains in Berlin. Elke Erb. Delightful prose poems translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Erb is one of those poets whose voice is wholly recognizable once you've read one book...there is a particular sort of metaphysical slant she gives the poem which is pretty much tantamount to reinventing the poem. The historical and the ahistorical and the eternally lost lie side by side.

11. Duncecap. Alison Bundy. Mysterious almost atavistic takes on fiction. Some short, some longer, they take the reader on a somnambulistic walk through strange neighborhoods.

12. The Will to Sickness. Gerhard Roth. Translated by Tristram Wolff. For those fans of novels with very few words in them, Roth's dark novel somewhat reminiscent of Sartre's La Nausee will be a bleak treat. I found myself rereading this novel several times over the course of several months. Sublimely depressing stuff.